No one under the age of 18 has sex in this story.
#
It finally sank into Deek's meth-soaked brain that he might have fucked up when the police officer forced the poor cornered drug addict to defend himself. He'd been so upset by the officer's belligerent attitude that he'd emptied the rest of the magazine in his Saturday Night Special in the cop's general direction. Fortunately, he'd only managed to hit the policeman once in his bulletproof vest. The SWAT team proceeded to beat the crap out of him despite his repeated protests that he had surrendered.
Deek's plan had been simple, and it had gone well at first. He cut the phone line to the pharmacist's house shortly after the man left for work. When he showed up at the door dressed in a phone company uniform, the wife had let him inside. He immediately tied her to a chair in the dining room. He found her four-year-old son and tied up the terrified boy in his bedroom.
The next part of the operation also went according to plan. Deek called the pharmacist and put the wife on for a moment to get the man's cooperation. He elicited a scream from the woman by ripping her nightgown open and was momentarily diverted by the sight of her plump bare breasts. The pharmacist interrupted Deek's lustful thoughts when the husband quickly agreed to the demand for money, drugs, and secrecy.
Deek wasn't sure when his simple plan fell apart. He blamed his failure on the pharmacist taking too much time. How fucking long does it take to get $10,000 in small bills and fill a bag with oxycontin? He'd gotten bored and became excited, staring at the middle-aged wife's bare breasts. They had to be at least DDs. No way they could be real. He wanted to feel them, but he was interrupted by cries from her damn son whining about being hungry. The woman claimed the boy had diabetes and begged to be allowed to feed him.
Deek had dragged her and her son into the kitchen to quiet the boy's crying. He freed the woman's hands so she could make sandwiches for everyone and thought he was careful when he left her feet bound. He'd been forced to shoot her when she came hopping at him with a nasty-looking chef's knife. He'd reluctantly killed the boy who had witnessed him defending himself against the traitorous bitch. That's when he heard the bullhorn calling for his surrender.
#
My name is Alyssa Sofia Stamford, and I'm smarter than you. I'm not bragging. It's just a fact. I've never met anyone more intelligent than I am. I had a 4.0 GPA in high school when I got my diploma at fifteen. I earned a perfect score on my SATs and was rewarded with a full scholarship to UCLA. I graduated from college just after my eighteenth birthday and got my law degree at twenty. Unfortunately, I wasn't one of the rich kids with family connections and considered myself lucky to find a job in the Los Angeles Public Defender's office. It seemed none of the big law firms wanted to hire a petite woman with light brown skin and big dark eyes who looked like she was fourteen and eagerly waiting for her quinceanera.
Ok, I'm only half Hispanic on my mother's side, but everyone says I look exactly like my namesake, aunt Sofia. I have her dark eyes and light brown skin. I'm a couple of inches taller than her at 5' 1,' but I weigh the same 108 pounds dripping wet.
My dear aunt Sofia was a descendant of Francisco Γvila, a wealthy Spanish ranchero and mayor of the pueblo of Los Angeles back in the early 1800s. When I was ten, my parents were killed by a drunk driver, and I was raised by the aunt I loved.
When I was twelve, I asked her for a pony for my birthday. My aunt laughed, and instead of giving me a pony, she enrolled me in jiu-jitsu. She said learning how to defend myself would be a more valuable skill for a tiny woman than knowing how to ride a horse.
I was twenty-one and had just finished law school when Sofia died proud and destitute. The house I had grown up in had a reverse mortgage she had used to pay my tuition. My only inheritance was a pair of large gold hoop earrings that I wear in court as a lucky charm.
I have two older brothers, one five years older and the other two years. My oldest brother, Michael, died in Afghanistan at the hands of a native soldier he was training to defend his country. My younger brother, Steve, lives in Pittsburgh with his wife and two small children. I love talking to him on the phone when he's free, which isn't often enough. Steve calls me Lyss. If I had any friends, that's the nickname I would prefer.
When I was very young, I loved to hang around with my brothers. Their friends found me annoying and called me by my initials to piss me off. My desire to be one of the boys ended one day when I joined their roughhousing. My sharp elbow accidentally bloodied a boy's nose. The next thing I knew, he pulled down my shorts and whipped my bare bottom with a supple birch branch he had been poking into an ant's nest. My brothers stopped him after a dozen blows. As I ran away crying, the bully yelled, "Hey ASS, run home to Momma, you stupid cry baby."
I learned from the experience. I decided I was going to outshine the assholes in school. I earned a series of perfect report cards, but I still had nightmares and paranoia about anything related to my ass.
#
No one in the Public Defender's office wanted anything to do with representing a vicious killer who was destined for death row. So, they gave Derek Grenhouser's case to me, the twenty-two-year-old newbie lawyer who was the only one who volunteered. I was eager to take on the high-profile case. I had nothing to lose and everything to gain in terms of building my reputation.
The Public Defender's office is a farce. The Constitution guarantees everyone the "assistance of counsel," and courts have ruled that this should be interpreted as the right to effective counsel. However, it is up to the defendant to prove their counsel was ineffective.
In reality, lawyers in the Las Angeles Public Defender's office carry a caseload of thirty to fifty cases. Typically, the first time you have a chance to review a case is when you are sitting in court waiting for the judge. It is often the first time you meet the defendant. Since your schedule would be a complete disaster if a case ever went to trial, the best you can do for your client is convince them to plead to a minor offense. Well, it's undoubtedly the best course of action for you and the prosecutor. Who has the time to worry about someone who is probably guilty of something if not with the crimes they're charged?
Since it was a capital murder case, and the DA was going for the death penalty, I was given a little more time to prepare than usual. It wasn't nearly enough, but it was enough time for me to discover that almost every piece of evidence had technically been contaminated.
I was puzzled by the report Deek had walked to the victims' house. How was he planning to make his getaway? There was no record of a motor vehicle in the list of items seized when the police searched his apartment building. I checked the DMV and found he had a 2011 Harley-Davidson Road King Classic registered in his name. There was one other Grenhouser listing in California. An 84-year-old Maggie Grenhouser lived just four blocks from the pharmacist's expensive home in the Hollywood Hills. Had he walked to the scene of the crime? Was the big Harley stashed at a relative's house? Maybe I could get his relative to contribute to Deek's meager defense fund.
I tried calling Maggie but got no response. After work, I drove to her home on Blue Heights Drive in the hills above Sunset Drive. I was amused to find she lived a couple of doors down from the cantilevered house used as the residence of Hieronymus Bosch in the TV series. I'd discovered the Bosch books years ago when I looked up the author of "The Lincoln Lawyer." It is one of my favorite books, and I dreamed about following in the eccentric lawyer's footsteps.
When I rang Maggie's doorbell, I was greeted by a woman who introduced herself as Clara, Mrs. Grenhouser's caregiver. Poor Maggie was resting on a couch overlooking a view that was every bit as spectacular as the one I remembered from the Harry Bosch show on TV. She didn't attempt to sit up. Her tired eyes fixed on me as if I were the death angel in disguise as an overly energetic pixie. The caregiver had said I had five minutes, and I got right to it.
"Maggie, I'm from the Public Defender's office. I'm representing Mr. Derek Grenhouser. Is he a relative of yours?"
Maggie's eyes narrowed as she scanned my face. Despite the oxygen tube under her nose, the old lady's reply was labored.